Coming to
by Bladderwrack
Summary: Brad and Schuldig talk after Schu gets hurt on a mission. One-shot, fluffy fluffy.


A/N: I was drunk when I wrote this. However, posting it, I'm sober, so I guess I don't have any excuses. Any and all reviews most welcome. This is my first go; so if I've screwed up, please tell me why so I can avoid doing it again.

Warnings: Cute, fluffy, pointlessness. Men hugging. eats entire thing and runs off with sap running down her chin.

Disclaimers: The characters, not mine.

It took a moment for Schuldig to work out where he had woken up. He blinked a few times and waited for his head to clear as the living room swam into focus. He tried to push himself upright, but the world seemed to lurch suddenly and the colour began to bleach from his vision. Propped on one elbow, he shut his eyes and waited before trying again.

The sofa cushions dipped as someone else sat down. Precise hands guided and supported Schuldig as he sat up. Schuldig rested his head on the other's shoulder and concentrated hard on not passing out.

"I don't feel well, Brad," he mumbled blearily. He felt Brad's humourless smirk.

"I didn't exactly expect you to." He began to talk, allowing Schuldig time to come to properly. Schuldig just let Crawford's voice come in and out of frequency, like a dodgy short-wave radio, as he tried to sort out his disordered memories. " – so Takatori was not at all happy about that; I pulled the whole team out as soon as you went down, there was no way we could keep on going and win with one out for the count - "

"Sorry."

" – not worth it for such a minor - "

"I screwed up."

"Hn?"

"I screwed things up, didn't I?"  
"Hey, not your fault, it was a hopeless situation in the first place, not that they would have taken note of any talk about that. They're chronically understaffed; they just don't seem to realise how pointless and dangerous it is to cut corners like that - ", the easy stream of words became a rant against remote power and idiot bureaucracies, " – don't seem to realise quite what the word 'team' means. We can't just keep functioning as a half-unit or anything. But there you go," he said, winding down, "I acted for the good of my men, and now all quarters are shouting and demanding explanations." He sighed in frustration.

Schuldig didn't trust himself to shift from where he was, so he just squeezed Brad's shoulder clumsily with his free hand.

"C'mon, don't worry about those pricks. Psychic assassins, right? We could take 'em all down."

"Psychic powers won't stop blades or bullets."

"That's a bit close to the bone right now, don't you think?"

"My point."

The two sat in silence for a moment. Schuldig leaned back against the sofa cushions and investigated the bandages underneath his shirt.

"So I was shot, I remember that. Did it go right through?"

"Yeah."

"I can hardly feel it at all. Just a kind of dull ache." He grinned wryly. "Good dope, huh?"

"You were bleeding all over the place. Nagi couldn't stop it while we were moving. I thought we were going to have to take you to the city hospital or something – Takatori wanted us straight back here." Schuldig pushed himself awkwardly to his feet.

"I'm going to the bathroom."

When Schuldig returned, Crawford had taken his shoes and his glasses off and was pinching the bridge of his nose in a futile attempt to dispel the fatigue brought on by going nearly forty hours without sleep. Schuldig sat down shakily. What little colour he had had been wrung out by the effort of standing up and moving around. He had lost a hell of a lot of blood, after all. Brad looked at him.

"You wanna lie down?"

" … Mm."

Schuldig was surprised. Instead of laying him down on the sofa and leaving, as he had expected, Brad carefully put his arms around Schuldig, avoiding his injured shoulder, and pulled him down to lie half on the sofa, half against his chest.

Schuldig lay motionless against him, hurt and exhausted, his body not quite caught up with recent events. People his age all over Tokyo were working in shops or still at university; he, shortly, killed people for a living. Bradley only occasionally realised how young Schuldig was – how young his entire team was.

Brad's embrace was secure, almost fierce. Schuldig ruminated vaguely on the way Bradley would always divert his personal feelings into other, more pragmatic matters. Even with his abilities weakened and muffled by painkillers, Brad was close enough for Schuldig to feel his tension. He knew Brad had been more worried about him than he cared to admit. Schuldig listened to Brad's heart beating, the point of his collar pressing into his cheek, feeling his breathing slow as he fell asleep. Schuldig shut his eyes and enjoyed the momentary respite from the rest of the world.


End file.
